134 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



plasmic threads, and their finest peripheral terminations, of a 

 liighly condensed and continuous flow of energy that stimulates 

 and directs the whole, at the same time that it is receiving 

 and being affected by stimuli from without, most of which 

 acting through definite energy-transformers — the plastids — 

 start thereby definite proenvironal movements in the chromatin 

 substance. 



But division of such cells proceeds on the indirect or karyo- 

 kinetic plan, in which previous careful sorting out and division 

 of the chromatin material into apparently symmetrical halves 

 occur, prior to di\dsion of the protoplasm. Thereby, after 

 each division, as has been universally accepted during recent 

 years, a redistribution of all the hereditary substance is con- 

 stantly effected. This then may approximately raise the 

 entire question of how division proceeds, and what is the sig- 

 nificance of it. We have referred to such in another part of 

 this work (chap. 10) but, so far as the mechanics and so far 

 as the energetics of division are concerned, the valuable obser- 

 vations of Butschli (21 passim) and Leduc show that exactly 

 such shapes, patterns, and distributional strains may be devel- 

 oped in inorganic liquids, such as salt water, a drop of the 

 same pigmented with India ink and on either side of the latter 

 a hypertonic drop of salt solution of lighter color. 



But, while such experiments show that definite inorganic 

 substances of relatively simple chemical composition can 

 form what we may call inorganic karyokinetic figures, from the 

 standpoint of life energetics it does not touch the question 

 of how highly complex colloid molecules are split asunder in 

 profoundly exact manner, and are carried to definite distances 

 apart, there to start a new and definite role of behavior. It 

 is, we claim, for the accomplishment of this that a highly con- 

 densed and economically work-transformable energy such as 

 the cognitic is needed. 



Here, however, it should at once be acknowledged that 

 jjerfect division of tlie simpler cyanoj^hyceous protoplasmic 

 cell proceeds, though unfortunately we know only imperfectly 

 regarding the minuter details of the i)rocess. In the higher 



